382 research outputs found
The core mammalian pluripotency network in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) formation : models for genetic and epigenetic reprogramming
No full textThis electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2018Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. "February 2018."Includes bibliographical references (pages 23-37).In 2006, history was made in a seminal experiment that converted mouse fibroblasts to a pluripotent phenotype coined the 'induced pluripotent stem cell' (iPSC) state. Unhindered by ethical or immunogenic constraints, iPSCs potentially hold the keys to tremendous applications in therapeutic and regenerative medicine. Furthermore, on-demand iPSC generation has the capacity to revolutionize basic research in disease modeling and drug discovery. These promises notwithstanding, the economics of iPSC formation--which remains a slow, inefficient, expensive, and laborious process--still stand in the way of fully making use of this extraordinary technology. In this thesis, I present mathematical models aimed at understanding the theoretical reprogrammability of the core pluripotency gene regulatory network being awakened in iPSC reprogramming. Using these modeling insights, I discuss the merits of current reprogramming strategies, which can be viewed as open-loop perturbations in control theoretic terms. I then discuss an alternative paradigm of closed-loop reprogramming, which is theoretically shown to be far superior when it comes to the reprogrammability of the pluripotency network. Finally, I propose a reprogramming model that incorporates the eæect of DNA demethylation on the activation of the network, with attention given to the relationship between this epigenetic transformation and the cell proliferation barrier that somatic cells seemingly face on the road to pluripotency.by Hussein Abdallah.M. Eng.M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienc
The Impact of the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO) on Sudan: The Impact of ALSO on our Performance
No full textFirst developed in 1991 under the ownership of the American Academy of Family Physician. ALSO important in Provision of Emergency Obstetric Care. In Feb 2004 the1st ALSO Provider course held at Continuous Professional Development Centre (CPD), University of Khartoum followed by a further 19 courses 9 at CPD - Soba University Hospital, U of K, 3 at CPD – Ministry of Health and 1 each in Dongola, Madani, ElObeid, Kosti, Sennar, Hasahisa & Kassala Then 4 instructors’ courses were held,480 completed the providers’ course.
This is an observational cross-sectional study conducted in Sudan to evaluate the impact of ALSO on the performance of instructors.
Almost all instructors (96%) were committed to continue in their involvement in the ALSO The majority (76%) are using the ALSO pneumonics in their practice Most instructors reported an increase in motivation (64%), confidence (73%) and ability (95%) in tackling obstetrical emergencies. The involvement of the instructors in ALSO improved their knowledge (49%), and markedly improved their skills (73%) andattitude (78%)
Conclusion:The ALSO course should be a mandatory component of the postgraduate training curriculum
The Case Against Saddam Hussein--The Case for World Order
No full textThe following Article is an excerpt from a paper written in the Fall of 1990. The author submitted the paper in December 1990 as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Laws program at the University of Virginia. The opinions and conclusions expressed are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent the United States Army or other governmental agency.
The United Nations\u27 Charter gives the Security Council enforcement authority for breaches of world peace. To be meaningful, rights must have remedies, and the Security Council should now pursue remedies to enforce the rights provided in the Charter. The bipolar politics that have precluded effective sanctions for the last forty years have now subsided, and the world stands at a precipice anticipating new action. This Article advocates the United Nations Security Council use the current Crisis in the Gulf to establish a Grievous Offender Tribunal to try individuals for violations of international law. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein\u27s invasion of Kuwait presents the Security Council with a paradigm case on which to initiate such a Tribunal
Tyranny on Trial: Personality and Courtroom Conduct of Defendants Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein
No full textIn this essay in the Symposium on Milosevic & Hussein on Trial, the author explores the impacts of personality & courtroom conduct in trial outcome to argue that the likenesses between the two defendants will result in Saddam\u27s projection of grand defiance. Biographical narratives of the two leaders trace the psychological development of each personality through childhood to their political careers characterized by defiant resistance & compensatory grandiosity that may be the source of the similarities of behaviors in the courtroom. Asserting that Saddam is following the Milosevic model of courtroom behavior by derailment of the proceeding, exploitation of the victimization theme, & distortion of history to present his political platform, the author concludes that, defiant & unrepentant, both defendants have returned to the international stage to restate their heroic legacies. J. Harwel
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The Case Against Saddam Hussein--The Case for World Order
No full textThe following Article is an excerpt from a paper written in the Fall of 1990. The author submitted the paper in December 1990 as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Laws program at the University of Virginia. The opinions and conclusions expressed are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent the United States Army or other governmental agency.
The United Nations\u27 Charter gives the Security Council enforcement authority for breaches of world peace. To be meaningful, rights must have remedies, and the Security Council should now pursue remedies to enforce the rights provided in the Charter. The bipolar politics that have precluded effective sanctions for the last forty years have now subsided, and the world stands at a precipice anticipating new action. This Article advocates the United Nations Security Council use the current Crisis in the Gulf to establish a Grievous Offender Tribunal to try individuals for violations of international law. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein\u27s invasion of Kuwait presents the Security Council with a paradigm case on which to initiate such a Tribunal
Erring Modernization : The Dilemma Of Developing Societies.
No full textThe old and the vanquished does not immediately descend into the grave. The resistance and' longevity of that which is at the point of vanishing are based on the instinct of 'self-preservation inherent to all that exists
Gaussian process models for preliminary low-thrust trajectory optimization
No full textLow-thrust trajectories can benefit the search for propellant-optimal trajectories, but increases in modeling complexity and computational load remain a challenge for efficient mission design and optimization. In this paper, an approach for developing models utilizing Gaussian Process (GP) regression and classification is proposed to perform computationally efficient optimization while obtaining acceptable accuracies for trajectories based on exponential sinusoid shaping. The goal of this work is to predict a combination of values of input variables which corresponds to a shape-based trajectory with the smallest total velocity increment (ΔV) or propellant mass fraction (J m). A GP classification model is constructed to assess whether a given combination of values of input variables corresponds to a feasible trajectory. GP regression models are developed to predict the total ΔV and J m corresponding to a combination of shape parameters, which can replace the required integration along the shape. In addition, advanced regression models are developed to predict the target values while requiring only three input parameters, thereby replacing the entire shape computation. In order to develop a GP model that fits the problem at hand, the underlying functions and parameters should be selected rationally. In this work, a novel model development approach is proposed to ensure that the mean function, covariance function, likelihood function, inference method, and hyperparameters, which dominate the performance of the models, are chosen rationally in terms of mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and prediction time. Using this approach, GP models are developed and tested on transfer trajectories from Earth to Mars and Ceres, and from Mars to Earth, and their performance, in terms of MAPE and prediction time, is compared to that of more common optimization techniques in combination with the exponential sinusoid and other shape-based methods. The results demonstrate that the computation time can significantly be reduced while achieving promising MAPE’s, especially when the goal is to locate regions of feasible or near-optimal trajectories. The proposed model development procedure is tested for robustness, which provides confidence in the proposed approach. Furthermore, it is found that the models which map three input variables directly to a ΔV or J m value perform better than the ones trained with shape information, which demonstrates the strength of GP models as applied to low-thrust trajectory optimization. Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Astrodynamics & Space Mission
The regulation of labour and the state in the Sudan : a study of the relationship between the stage of social and economic development and the autonomy of labour relations law
No full textThe thesis is a study of labour regulation and the State in the
Sudan in the light of a general theoretical conception of labour law and
the State. The first Chapter defines the concepts of analysis that are
used throughout the study, isolates the "essential" properties of the
Capitalist State and Law from the historically concrete forms which they
assume in a particular society and distinguishes between processes which
influence development of the form of law and others which influence its
sociological development. Drawing on the analysis in Chapter I, Chapter
II exposes the inter-relationship between the Sudanese social formation,
State and Law and the implication of this inter-relationship for both the
form and substance of labour relations law. Chapters III, IV and V are
specific verifications of the hypothesis regarding the inter-relationship
between the State and labour relations law in the Sudan and that
regarding the development of the "substance" and "ideology" of law in
general.
The thesis considers law as an empirically-founded discipline.
But, it distinguishes between various types of empirical facts about law
corresponding with respective semi-autonomous social levels at which law
asserts its existence. The research method followed describes the
empirical facts about law at the particular level and, in order to
determine the epistemological significance of these facts, analytically
relates them to empirical facts at other levels. Wherever used in the
thesis the term "theory" signifies either this methodological procedure of
analysing the inter-connection of empirical facts at a certain level and
their inter-relation with other facts at other levels, or the substantive
generalizations about law which findings at these various levels would
allow.
I consider my application of this methodology to the study of
labour rela tions law, the historical dimension this application introduces
in socio-economic analysis of this law, the criticism of certain Marxist
and other sociological conceptions of law it enables, and the
socio-histor ical relativity of the "substance" and "ideology" of law it
reveals as original contributions to the knowledge of labour law. The
compilation and evaluation within the framework of the thesis of
empirical materials on industrial relations in the Sudan are likewise
original contribution to the knowledge of Sudanese "labour law" and
labour law in general
Adapting authoritarianism: institutions and co-optation in Egypt and Syria
No full textThis PhD thesis compares Egypt and Syria’s authoritarian political systems. While the tendency in social science political research treats Egypt and Syria as similarly authoritarian, this research emphasizes differences between the two systems with special reference to institutions and co-optation. Rather than reducibly understanding Egypt and Syria as sharing similar histories, institutional arrangements, or ascribing to the oft-repeated convention that “Syria is Egypt but 10 years behind,” this thesis focuses on how events and individual histories shaped each states current institutional strengthens and weaknesses. Specifically, it explains the how varying institutional politicization or de-politicization affects each state’s capabilities for co-opting elite and non-elite individuals.
Beginning with a theoretical framework that considers the limited utility of democratization and transition theoretical approaches, the work underscores the persistence and durability of authoritarianism. Chapter two details the politicized institutional divergence between Egypt and Syria that began in the 1970s. Chapter three and four examines how institutional politicization or de-politicization affects elite and non-elite individual co-optation in Egypt and Syria. Chapter five discusses the study’s general conclusions and theoretical implications.
This thesis’s argument is that Egypt and Syria co-opt elites and non-elites differently because of the varying degrees of institutional politicization in each governance system. Rather than view one country as more politically developed than the other, this work argues that Syria’s political institutions are more politicized than their Egyptian counterparts. Syria’s political arena is, thus, described as politicized-patrimonialism. Syria’s politicized-patrimonial arena produces uneven co-optation of elites and non-elites as they are diffused through competing institutions. Conversely, the Egyptian political arena remains highly personalized as weak institutions and individuals are manipulated and molded according to the president’s ruling clique. This is referred to as personalized-patrimonialism. As a consequence, Egypt’s political establishment demonstrates more flexibility in ad hoc altering and adapting its arena depending on the emergence of crises.
This study’s theoretical implications suggest that, contrary to modernization and democratization theory’s adage that institutions lead to a political development, politicized institutions within a patrimonial order actually hinder regime adaptation because consensus is harder to achieve and maintain. It is within this context that Egypt’s de-politicized institutional framework advantages its top political elite. In this reading of Egyptian and Syrian politics, Egypt’s personalized political arena is more adaptable than Syria’s. These conclusions do not indicate that political reform is a process underway in either state
Low neonatal blood glucose levels in cesarean-delivered term newborns at Khartoum Hospital, Sudan
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